But her city has now been thrust to the precipice of what Ben Abbott, an ecologist at the local Brigham Young University, calls “one of the worst environmental disasters in modern US history”, with the rapidly shrinking Great Salt Lake, just a short distance from the city, leaving behind a lakebed laced with arsenic, mercury and other toxins. The wind is already beginning to pick up these toxins in airborne plumes that will only grow as the lake, which could disappear within five years, recedes further.
‘Not much time left’: Salt Lake City’s mayor on the Great Lake drying up | Utah | The Guardianhttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/18/salt-lake-city-mayor-erin-mendenhall-utah-great-lake-decline-climate-crisis